Larry Nevers is nothing like you’d expect. Now, I’ve interviewed my fair share of criminal defendants over the years and the vast majority are not nice guys. They’re usually defensive, often hostile, frequently accusatory. To a person, they want to avoid any detailed discussion of their alleged crimes.

Nevers, the former Detroit cop convicted of second degree murder for allegedly beating Malice Green to death in 1992, but later let go when a federal judge concluded his trial was unfair, is personal and affable. He is willing to talk at great length about the incident that put him behind bars for four and a half years. He evaded not a single question I threw at him during an interview last Thursday following his talk to the Novi Rotary Club. He willingly repeated details over and again to make the situation clear.

You have to be impressed with his sincerity. When he says he did nothing wrong during that incident, it’s quite clear he truly believes it.

Now, I’m not hear to absolve him. I’ve not studied the case in great depth, nor was I in the courtroom at the time of his trial. To this point, I heard primarily his side of the story.

But his openness with this writer was all the more remarkable because he blames the media for a large portion of his troubles. And I can appreciate that. During the height of the trial, in 1993, Detroit newspapers and television stations covered him extensively. And they were not kind.

The extensive coverage of the case was enough to convince Federal District Judge Lawrence Zatkoff last year that there had indeed been a prejudicial effect. The media’s coverage and the fact members of the jury could not help but read or hear some of it, resulted in essentially trying the case in the papers, Zatkoff concluded.

Likewise, Nevers contended that much of what was written about him was inaccurate and slanted.

Nonetheless, at the time, Nevers wasn’t talking to the media. He’d been advised to say nothing. He was told by attorneys to get an answering machine for his home phone. Union reps told him to put nothing in writing.

"I know attorneys often advise their clients not to talk to the press. Would you say that’s bad advice?" I asked him.

Yes, he said. He’d advise people to talk openly, freely and often if they’ve been wrongly accused.

"If you’re not telling the truth, don’t say anything," he concluded. "But if the truth is on your side, tell it."

LARRY NEVERS MAKES FIRST SPEECH TO ROTARY

"I’m a truly innocent man and I hope to have a chance to prove it in court," Larry Nevers told the Novi Rotary Club last Thursday in his first speaking engagement since getting out of federal prison last December.

Yes, the former Detroit police officer said in an interview following his speech, he did strike Malice Green in the head with a flashlight six to seven times during their encounter outside a known crack house in Detroit in November 1992.

But that was because Green, Nevers contended, was reaching for the officer’s gun. Green had his hand on the butt and the only thing holding the weapon in place was a small strap and Nevers’ hand. He hit Green while telling him to let go of the gun. Later, he hit Green again when Green attempted to swing at him with "a shiny object" in his hand. It turned out to be a set of keys with the keys extended through the knuckles, Nevers said.

Regardless, his actions were all in accordance with the rules and procedures laid down to guide officer conduct in the Detroit Police Department policy manual. Had a police department Board of Review been convened to examine the incident, Nevers said, it would have reached that conclusion.

Instead, Police Chief Stanley Knox denied a board of Review hearing, Nevers said. Further, Detroit Mayor Coleman Young branded Nevers and his partner, Walter Budzyn, as murderers the day after the incident, before an investigation had been completed. The two were fired by the department before his preliminary examination was completed. And the city of Detroit paid the Green family a $5.25 million settlement before the pair even went to trial.

Nevers contends he and Budzyn were prosecuted on second degree murder charges to keep the Detroit community from rioting. The incident occurred shortly after Los Angeles erupted in violence after officers there were acquitted of charges of beating Rodney King. Comparisons between the two cases were prevalent in the Detroit media at the time. And he blames the Detroit media for a lot of the pretrial prejudice in the Detroit area about his case. He argues many misstatements and inaccuracies were included in the coverage, just adding fuel to the fire of community tensions.

Nevers was convicted in 1993 of second degree murder, but a federal judge vacated the sentence last year, ruling the trial was unfair. The Wayne County Prosecutor has appealed and Nevers is presently out of jail awaiting oral arguments on that appeal.

He was invited to address the local club by Novi Rotarian Tom Fry. Fry, who knows Nevers through family connections, has previously invited Larry’s wife, Nancy Nevers, to address the Rotary Club. She spoke to the Rotary last August.

Fry introduced Nevers as a police officer with an exemplary record. He’d been on the police force 24 years, and had received over 115 awards for his work, when the incident occurred nine months before Nevers was scheduled to retire. Fry said Nevers had made 10,000 felony arrests and was credited with 250,000 contacts in the line of duty.

In that time, 11 citizen complaints were filed against Nevers. All were reviewed, and all were dismissed, Fry said.

"We’re pretty confident they’ll be coming after him," Fry said of attempts by the Wayne County prosecutor to appeal the case and expectations that a new charge will be filed should that appeal fail. "But the most important thing to him is to clear his name."

"I loved the job," Nevers said, "and I thought I did it well. I trusted the department would stand behind me … I did nothing wrong, and if the department had conducted an inter-departmental investigation to determine if the rules and regulations had been followed, it would have found that out."

Instead, the Board of Review was denied, the mayor condemned him and the prosecutor "folded to the pressure," Nevers said.

He compared his case to a 1994 incident in which a Detroit officer shot suspect Jose Interaulde. Officers ordered Interaulde to take his hands out of his pockets and in the ensuing scuffle shot him seven times. Later, they found nothing in his pockets, but the officers were not suspended and the Board of Review cleared them of any wrongdoing.

"City council never expressed an opinion. No one, no Hispanic groups, came out against the officers. The newspapers did not pick up on the case," Nevers said, explaining the difference.

Nevers also told the story of a 1981 incident outside the Book Cadillac in which he and his partner had pulled over a car. They’d been told the pair inside had a gun and the driver was covered with blood. While they had the two against the car, one began resisting and knocked Nevers to the ground, he said.

The suspect then managed to grab Nevers’ loose gun off the ground. As the suspect stood over Nevers, he said, "I knew I was going to die and there was nothing I could do about it. I knew he would shoot me. I knew it was going to hurt. As he stood over me with that cuff dangling off his wrist, I closed my eyes."

Remarkably, he said, the suspect turned toward his partner. His partner shot and struck the suspect in the stomach, and the suspect then fled two blocks before he was shot again.

"I vowed then and there that I would never again let some guy get my gun," Nevers said. "Malice Green tried and I protected myself."

The incident occurred at about 10:15 p.m. on Nov. 5, 1992. Nevers said he and Budzyn saw the car Green and a friend were riding in pull up to the drug house. They noted bullet holes in the car’s fender. Green was asked to produce a drivers license, and when an object fell from the glovebox, both Green and Budzyn grabbed for it. Green got it and Budzyn was attempting to make him open his hand when the struggle started. Nevers said he saw a rock of crack cocaine fall from Green’s hand during the incident.

"At that point, I was legally obligated to make an arrest," he said. "The regulations don’t say I can if I want to. They say I must overcome resistance to make the arrest. They say I can use force to make that arrest if necessary, but I saw no need to use deadly force that night and I never did use deadly force."

Nevers argued a second autopsy of Green, who died on the way to the hospital, showed he succumbed due to an enlarged heart brought on by the use of cocaine and alcohol, not due to blunt force trauma to the head, which was the conclusion of the first autopsy.

Of the witnesses who testified against him, saying they saw him beat Green while he was offering no resistance, Nevers said, "I knew those people. Hell, I’d arrested half of them."

Although it was Nevers’ first speech, it likely won’t be his last. Nevers’ supporters have launched a fund raising effort to pay his legal defense bills. A fundraising event has been set for Sept. 29 in Livonia. The Nevers & Budzyn Fund can be reached at P.O. Box 458, Royal Oak, MI 48068, or by calling (248) 975-6611.

The Nevers and Budzyn Website can be reached on the Internet at www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/4701.

LOCAL POLICE REACT TO NEVERS’ TALK

Larry Nevers’ speech last Thursday brought out a contingent of police officers and law enforcement personnel to the Novi rotary luncheon at the United Methodist Church on Ten Mile Road.

Nevers, a former Detroit Police officer, was convicted in 1993 of second degree murder in the Malice Green case, but a federal judge vacated the sentence last year, ruling the trial was unfair.

The reaction among officers ranged from completely supportive to understanding. Mostly police officials were reluctant to state an opinion on his guilt or innocence, saying they had not reviewed the investigation, nor had they sat through the trial.

Still, like Novi Police Chief Doug Shaeffer stated, officers are expected to make snap decisions in the field which get reviewed later by people who have a lot of time to reach their conclusions. He told a story of one officer who used deadly force in the line of duty and, although eventually cleared of any wrongdoing, the case took 17 years to resolve.

"You have to be sympathetic to Nevers and his family, for what they are going through," Shaeffer said. "It could happen to any of us. It really could."

Roger Graves, Chief of Police of the City of Marshal, drove half way across the state to listen to his long-time friend’s speech. He addressed the Rotary to tell them his friend of 36 years was "fearless but never reckless." He said he did not believe Nevers would be abusive toward a suspect.

"I would never condone abusing a suspect, especially to the point someone dies," he said later. "But there are times when you have to use force to defend yourself. And that’s what I’m supportive of … As I understand it, (Nevers) was acting in self-defense, to keep (Green) from getting his gun. And there were other factors that caused (Green’s) death."

Wayne Bullens, a member of the Michigan State Police for 25 years who now operates the security firm, W.B. Investigations, in Novi, said "you have to have compassion for him" after hearing the speech. Such a tragedy could happen to any officer in the line of duty, he said.

"When you are an officer on the streets of Detroit, you have to have a different demeanor. If you don’t, you may not survive and you should find another line of employment," Bullens said.

Yes, police should be held to a higher standard for their conduct, he said, but reviewing an officer’s quick decisions on the street in a time of crisis is often a matter of "Monday morning quarterbacking." Bullens won’t say whether he thinks the verdict was proper, but he does feel strongly that Nevers was overcharged. If charged, he said he feels Nevers should have been charged with an offense less than murder.

JUDGES SAYS COURT VIOLATED OFFICERS’ RIGHT TO FAIR TRIAL

The Novi News, Thursday, July 30, 1998

At least one judge has agreed with Larry Nevers that his trial was unfair.

Federal District Court judge Lawrence Zatkoff condemned the 1993 trial in an opinion written last year. Zatkoff vacated Nevers’ sentence on the charge of second degree murder for the death of Malice Green and Nevers was released from prison last December.

He had served nearly four and a half years by that time.

The Wayne County Prosecutor’s office is presently appealing the Zatkoff ruling. Briefs have been filed in federal circuit court and Nevers is currently free awaiting oral arguments.

If the appeal fails, however, Nevers said he expects the prosecutor will refile charges against him in an attempt to retry him.

Walter Budzyn, Nevers’ partner on the night of their encounter with Green, has already been retried. After an appeal overturned his original convection on a charge of second degree murder, Budzyn was retried and convicted of involuntary manslaughter. This past May, Budzyn was sentenced to time served, but his attorneys have promised an appeal of the verdict anyway, according to Nevers.

In Nevers’ case, Zatkoff stated, "the Constitution of the United States does not bend to placate an enraged citizenry."

He noted that at least one juror had learned the city was bracing for a riot should Nevers and Budzyn be acquitted.

"The Court cannot imagine a more prejudicial extraneous influence that that of a juror discovering that the City he or she resides in is bracing for a riot - including activation the National Guard and closing freeways - in the event the defendant on whose jury you sit is acquitted. The magnitude of such extraneous influence cannot be overlooked," he wrote.

Zatkoff called the court’s refusal to change the venue in the light immense pretrial publicity a "manifest error."

"This was not simply a case of one or two minor instances of extraneous influence finding its way into the jury room, but, rather, serious, repeated encroachments of the Petitioner’s constitutional right to have a jury decided the case solely on evidence submitted at trial," Zatkoff stated.

In his opinion, Zatkoff noted that his ruling was not a judgment on Nevers’ guilt or innocence, but only about whether Nevers received a fair trial.

Still, Zatkoff pointedly disagreed with the Michigan Supreme Court that there was "overwhelming evidence" against Nevers.